


Marked (Or Four Times Yennefer and Tissaia Meet After Ascension)

by galeaspida



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Pain, Sharing a Bed, Unsafe Taverns In Violation of Established Building Codes, Willful Magic Users With No Respect For Their Elders, terrible childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22124350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galeaspida/pseuds/galeaspida
Summary: Oneshot. The four moments we didn't see between Yennefer and Tissaia in the television series. Tissaia/Yennefer, which can be read either way until the last part.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 84
Kudos: 493





	Marked (Or Four Times Yennefer and Tissaia Meet After Ascension)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【授权翻译】记号 Marked](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22170463) by [angry_tomato](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angry_tomato/pseuds/angry_tomato)



> Did I expect to fall headfirst into this ship when I innocently opened episode two? I did not. And yet here we are. Disclaimer: I have watched the show and read the wiki page specific to the books and this is a mixture of both. 
> 
> Tissaia De Vries is a crush I didn't see coming and I am smitten. And god, Yennefer, you beautiful flawed being...

I.

Yennefer has been in Aedirn for three years and the artifice of life at the palace as a court mage has become suffocating. Too much of her time is spent dealing with the petty problems of the mundane day-to-day instead of the ground-breaking glories she’d hoped to have a hand in. Yennefer is paraded around on King Virfuril’s arm as his favoured dance partner during balls more often than sitting at his side in the council room with the advisors. The wonders of the palace gardens are finite, the sumptuous delicacies from distant lands grow dull, and the dramatic plays held monthly during feasts are predictable and repetitious. 

To her irritation, word of Yennefer’s powers spread after her arrival, followed by an immediate and incessant stream of requests for romances that are yearned for, poisons for plans of revenge, and cures for a wide range of inconvenient ailments, most of a sexual nature. She only ever grants the latter - poison is distasteful and a craven way of disposing of the unwanted. 

(Also marking the first year of her arrival is a series of young nobles challenging one another to duels for a chance at attracting her notice. After the second death by sword blow, she announces that the next man who starts a duel in hope of romance will be turned into a duck. The duels evaporate, and the nobles venture off to less exciting women.)

(She thinks of Istredd rarely. She never dwells on her mother or siblings or the father who wasn’t. Those chapters of her life are in the past.)

Yennefer occupies herself with simple delights; instruction in combat and horses and hunting from the select courtiers she invites into her bedchamber as she explores the physical. She reads her way through the grand collection of books in the castle library, and conducts her own private explorations into magic. King Virfuril doesn’t do anything too unwise and the treaties hold with the other Northern kingdoms. Beyond occasional meetings with other court mages, she has minimal communication from the Chapter. 

(This is all she can ask for, she supposes.) 

—

The Midsummer Festival in Aedirn begins on the longest day of the year and the castle has extended invitations throughout the kingdom and beyond. The day begins with a hunt, and Virfuril and his hunters return triumphant through the cheering crowd in a pretty display of pageantry, fluttering ribbons on long spears, flowers tossed in their path, trailed by servants carrying deer and boar carcasses lashed to poles. An open competition is held that afternoon; trials of hand-to-hand combat, an archery tournament, and a wrestling match, with the prizes - a bag of silver - awarded to the winners of each by the King’s mother. 

The evening banquet is held in the great hall, with Virfuril greeting the guests one by one. Yennefer has taken up her accustomed place in one corner of the room with her back to one of the supporting columns, an eye on the king and the crowd at all times as she sips at her goblet of wine. The travelling musicians from Tuissaint are playing nearby, joining an elderly woman with a dulcimer who is leading them in a slow Aedirian waltz to accompany the steady stream of public introductions of the arriving dignitaries. 

Yennefer is quite pleased with her choice of gown - having found a dressmaker who was willing to make her something more daring than is usually worn in Aedirn. It’s certainly attracting glances from the guests walking by and she watches as a servant who let his attention slip for just a moment too long, collides with a door while carrying an empty tray back to the kitchens.

‘The envoy from the Brotherhood: Tissaia de Vries, Rectoress of Aretuza.’

Yennefer’s head jerks up in surprise at the name. Tissaia’s slight form is mid-curtsy in front of the throne, back straight, the gesture just low enough to show some measure of deference to the king. 

Virfuril inclines his head in acknowledgement. He's young, but no stranger to sorceresses or the Brotherhood and knows the value of respect towards mages, particularly the famed Rectoress of Aretuza, rumored to be one of the three most powerful magic users in the land. 

The herald announces the next guest as Tissaia breaks away from the line and walks unhurriedly through the assembled guests with clear purpose. 

Yennefer lifts her chin and meets Tissaia's sky-blue gaze as she approaches.

‘Is Aretuza so starved for attention that the Brotherhood is sending you to parties now? Or has a local Aedirnian girl caught your attention and you wish to collaborate on the best method of her extraction that won’t drain the school’s coffers?’

Tissaia selects a goblet of wine from the tray offered up by a passing servant. Her face is expressionless as she comes to stand beside Yennefer.

‘Your king’s actions are attracting notice,’ she says quietly, her mouth barely moving. ‘He’s sent soldiers to claim land that is not his.’

‘I’ve not heard of it.’

Tissaia turns her head returns her stare with an unwavering one of her own.

‘Laziness is no excuse for ineptitude, girl. I expect you to keep a better eye on him. If Virfuril continues to quarrel with Radowet in Kaedwen over the land north of the Dyfne, there will be thousands of innocents dead by the new year, and it will spill over into other kingdoms as well.’

Yennefer turns her head to look over the growing crowd, straightening up, feeling her bare shoulders brush against the smooth marble behind her. 'You overestimate my influence over his actions. The man listens to his advisors, and I am not among them.’

‘Channel your cleverness towards something other than cheap tricks for sex-starved courtiers, Yennefer. Bloodthirsty warmongering by repressed men can be dealt with - they’ve wants and needs the same as the rest of us. I’ve no doubt that you’ll think of something to separate them into manageable sections that can be controlled.’

Yennefer blinks, irritation replaced by shock at the thought of someone as restrained as Tissaia admitting to possessing something as base as  _ wants _ or  _ needs _ .

The next words flow through her mind in an echo, the light sweep of the woman’s mind brushing deftly against her own.

_ ‘And watch out for poison. Assassins are rumoured to be sent out to the Northern courts, targeting mages and nobles alike.' _

Tissaia has already left her side by the time she is able to muster any word of retort. 

\---

During the next month, Yennefer finds three spies in Vengerberg, quietly kills a poison-carrying assassin - a boy who couldn’t have been older than fifteen - who was targeting the King’s mother, and arranges through some deft maneuvering for the most troublesome of the Virfuril’s advisors to be reassigned to a small village on the Western border of the country. 

The former advisor falls off his horse and hits his head on a stone several nights after arriving at his new post. ‘Too much mead’, the letter from the village marshal reads when sending word of the man’s death, unaware both of a lifetime of practiced alcoholism and of the slow acting cumulative toxin of Ivory Marsh Berry artfully masked in a wine skin. 

(It had seemed a shame to throw the assassin’s supply away when there was such a clear use for it.) 

Yennefer now has a seat on the King’s Council, Aedirnian raids over the river fizzle and Virfuril’s attention turns instead towards tentative trade agreements with Kaedwen.

(There’s a beauty in it, she realizes, seeing the softest touch or choice word ripple outwards into the world. She has control over something tangible, and there is an unexpected satisfaction in this.)

\---- 

Yennefer happens across a young perfumer’s shop in a corner street while hunting down spies. A particular scent catches her nose - a perfume distilled from lilac flowers from the surrounding forests, the inner bark of a tree that grows in Elder groves, and ripe gooseberries from Skellige. 

She purchases a bottle of perfume and the method of extraction and mixing from the maker. It’s a long life she has to look forward to, and she might as well smell pleasant while living it.

\----

II.

It is nineteen years since Yennefer’s Ascension and she is dying - bleeding out on her back on a dirt road in Kaedwen.

A black-fletched arrow is buried deep beneath her breast and her left leg obviously broken, the thigh grossly deformed in a perverse echo of the sideways curve of her old spine. Bodies of men and dead horses surround her from the failed ambush but the surrounding dark of the deep woods hides more danger that will happily feast on an injured magic user.

All she has left is enough energy to flee to the only safe place she knows.

A gesture and a choked whisper in Elder and the horizontal portal snaps open beneath her. She is dropped five feet onto a stone floor with earth and dry leaves from the surrounding forest raining down around her in a rough circle. 

The solid sound of her body hitting the ground draws the immediate attention of the only person in the room.

An exclamation of surprise, hurried footsteps and then contact. A blinking of eyes shows a hazy familiar face, but Yennefer is already fading. Quick hands fly over her body with precision, assessing through touch. She groans as her side is pressed inwards, her ribs grinding together, a wet-sounding cough spluttering up from her chest. More warm bubbling blood drips down her chin, the metallic taste in her mouth sharp and clear.

She’s having difficulty breathing and it’s getting worse.

The bodice of her dress is ripped open and cool hands press hard on her rib cage. There are whispered words that she can’t make out clear. Arrow. Quick. Breathe.

The wooden arrow is yanked out of her body in one brutal pull. Yennefer howls as the barbed head scrapes between her ribs, her body spasming in pain. She clutches at the bare arms that hold her down, arching her back, feeling the sharp edges of her broken leg pierce more muscle with the movement. The hands return to her skin, applying firm pressure over the chest wound, the muttering of the complex incantation followed by the slow ebbing of pain as torn flesh smooths over, ruptured lung tissue reforms, and knitting bones return to alignment.

(She can only guess at how long it takes - minutes, hours. Magical healing is always individualized, and Yennefer can’t help but try to direct it herself rather than cede control to another.) 

When the pain has finally settled to tolerable levels, Yennefer slowly rolls to one side on the cold floor and blinks opens her eyes.

Tissaia sits on the floor a foot away, disheveled and panting and radiating spent magic. She’s wearing a linen nightdress - once white, now stained in Yennefer’s blood - and her bare arms are streaked with red. The silver pendant of Aretuza hangs between her breasts, moving up and down as her chest heaves with deep breaths.

'Proud, stubborn girl.’ Tissaia’s voice is hoarse with exhaustion and she is drenched in sweat. ‘You could never accept help willingly. You made that harder than necessary by fighting me every step of the way.'

'Fuck you.' 

Yennefer’s voice is a whisper.

Tissaia tilts her head back to rest against the wood panel of the desk, closing her eyes. She pushes loose strands of hair from her damp forehead with her wrist, leaving a streak of blood above her brow. 

‘Your sharp tongue won’t scare me away, Piglet. I’ve endured far worse in my lifetime.’

Yennefer has no answer to this. The sweeping wave of weariness from the healing is already pushing her towards the heavy grey depths of impending unconsciousness. 

—

She wakes in a strange bed, naked but cleaned of blood and dirt. The heavy curtains are drawn back from the windows, letting in the sun that is high in the sky. Waves crash forcefully on the cliffs below, drowning out the crying of gulls, and the smell of salt and the sea brings her back to her first visit to Aretuza. 

There an indentation in the sheets next to her. Tissaia is nowhere in sight.

Yennefer rises stiffly out of the bed, selects a dress from the wardrobe, and then opens a portal back to Aedirn. 

She pushes the hazy memories of Tissaia’s soft hands and warm water on her skin out of her mind. There’s work to be done and she can’t afford any distractions. 

\-----

III.

Years pass and the world continues on. Virfuril arranges for the assassination of his first wife after a second daughter is born, caring little if it takes his court mage with it. The Chapter will always send a new mage after all - more concerned with dynasties and stable kingdoms than unfortunate casualties of succession, even if they are magic users. Yennefer does not return to Aedirn after escaping the ambush and burying the princess. The intricacies of politics and royal bloodlines are long behind her - she’s had enough of courtly life; intent on regaining a choice that was taken away from her all those years ago.

She follows a lead on a loner mage in the South who can brew potions that rival any power on this earth, at prices that rival the yearly coffers of the greatest kingdoms. Fortunately commoners and nobles alike share similar tastes, and it isn't difficult to find coin and arrange for comfortable lodging and pleasant company.

Tissaia visits her once in Rhinde, chastises her for wanting too much, and then extends her the impossible - an offer to join her at Aretuza. It’s an attempt by the woman to balance her, Yennefer knows, but she can’t help but resent Tissaia for it. 

(Istredd was right all those years ago in the Tower of the Gull - Tissaia uses everyone she lays her hands on as a pawn for the greater good. Why would Yennefer be any more dear to her?)

She meets a witcher, fails to trap a genie, and wakes to find the witcher gone.

More years pass. The witcher returns into her life, they share another narrow escape. A truth from a dragon that cuts her to the bone and suddenly she lacks path or purpose again.

She feels split in two. Directionless.

(Perhaps Tissaia had been right after all.)

—

It’s late winter and the hills of Temeria are covered in a thick blanket of snow. The local villages in the region are having a problem with a persistent illness that is wiping out newborn cattle, and after a month of travelling in circles and exploring field after field, Yennefer’s close to the cure. 

Once she was one of the most prized mages in the land and now she’s paid a pittance to solve mysteries of livestock. 

(How she’s fallen. Another few years and a cottage in the woods and she’ll be nearer to a hedge witch than anything else, accepting chickens and grain in exchange for tonics and tinctures. Perhaps she’ll have a goat.)

The letter reaches her one morning by messenger. The parchment has the name of a local tavern and a time, with no other information other than the distinctive seal that she’d recognize anywhere. 

She pushes down the spark of hope that it ignites.

\----

Yennefer begins to wonder if she took a wrong turn when she sees the designated meeting place.

The ancient tavern that the letter had directed her to is in dire need of a new roof - missing a substantial number of shingles - and it looks to be one strong storm away from being scattered across Temeria.

She ties her horse to a hitching post after seeing the state of the stables (near collapse) and walks up the steps (two boards are missing) to the door hanging on rusted hinges. Faint music is audible through the window. 

The room inside is lit by sconces and warmer than the outside. The only people visible are a barman and a few sleeping men slumped face down in their seats near to the door. The barman’s slow breathing and vacant stare into space is all the proof she needs of enchantment present. 

(It must be the right place after all.) 

The bard in the corner is a woman, middle-aged, with brown skin and hair shorn close to her head. Her eyes are also empty, but her fingers on her lute are precise and her voice carries well. The song is one of longing.

Yennefer’s eyes narrow when she spots the figure seated at a table next to the fireplace.

Tissaia is dressed in dark silk. Her crimson cloak is lined with fox fur, the hood thrown back. Her lips are thinned and her pretty face twisted into an expression nearer to a grimace than Yennefer has ever seen her wear.

Yennefer picks up an empty cup and a wine jug from the bar and walks to the back of the tavern. She sets the wine on the table, sits down on a chair, and raises her eyebrows expectantly at the woman opposite her.

‘You look like you’ve tasted juice that’s gone sour, Tissaia. This meeting wasn’t your idea, was it?’

‘The Chapter has asked that I extend an invitation to you in person. I told them that it was a pointless exercise. And yet I find myself here all the same.’

Yennefer pours wine into her cup and takes a drink, waiting for more to come.

Tissaia folds her hands in front of her. ‘To be brief, they need eyes on Nilfgaard, eyes unaffiliated with the Chapter or the court mages. There is trouble brewing in the South with Cintra since the death of the princess earlier this year - and they’ve come to a realization that perhaps letting Fringilla stay down there all those years ago might have been a mistake.’

‘You have fallen far if you’re being sent on petty errands - Stregibor has obviously succeeded in his quest for control. And of course I won’t go to Nilfgaard - I refused that order from the Brotherhood more than fifty years ago and nothing has changed in that time to make me want to please your precious circle of self-satisfied and self-serving peacocks.’ 

Tissaia eyes flicker down to the table. 

‘I never wished to send you to Nilfgaard, Yennefer. Among other valid reasons, I didn’t want to...expose… you to the lust of a doomed king, or burden you with a succession war in an unfamiliar place. And I wanted to keep you close.’

Yennefer pauses mid-sip. 

‘Is that  _ sentiment _ I detect, Tissaia? From you? You’ve certainly changed since you bought me as a girl all those years ago.’

Tissaia leans back slightly in her chair and gazes appraisingly at Yennefer. The glint of the silver chain around her neck catches the firelight. 

‘It always comes back to that, doesn’t it, Yennefer? Had I known then what I know now, I would have made an effort to acquire you in a more considerate manner. It irks you to be controlled by anyone, and the thought of me ever having  _ owned _ you is unbearable.’

Yennefer pushes down the traitorous feeling of warmth these words spark in her belly. She’s grown beyond this old attachment to her teacher.

‘You bought me for less than half the price of a suckling pig,’ she spits out, eyes narrowing, barely-checked magic boiling beneath her skin. ‘Can you begin to imagine the pain of being exposed by a stranger as being unloved and unwanted by your own blood? Of being worth less than an animal for which the only purpose in its short life is to be slaughtered and eaten? You wander through life with your only constant being obedience to your precious school and The Chapter. It's obvious you've never lost one thing in your life.’

Tissaia’s back straightens as she sits taller in her chair. Her blue eyes are cold, and are fixed on Yennefer. 

'Don’t throw pitiful taunts at me, girl,’ she says in a voice dripping with ice. ‘My parents - good, innocent people - were murdered when I was thirteen years old. A month later I was in Aretuza - my aunt happy to be rid of me as quickly as possible, and had I not possessed magic, it would have been to first brothel she could sell me to. And I didn’t quite escape that fate either; the first king I served as mage made the lustful Nilfgaardian you were supposed to go to look like an innocent lamb. Believe me, Yennefer, when I say that I know  _ something  _ of the loss of self, and of the white-hot rage that rides close on its heels. You are not the only one have suffered, and wielding your hurt like a weapon whenever things don’t go your way will continue to hold you back from true power. And if you haven’t learned that by now, then I truly have nothing left to teach you.’

Tissaia stands up, picks her gloves off the table, and moves towards the tavern door, pausing next to Yennefer. 

‘I do not own you and I  _ do _ care for you, Yennefer,’ she says softly, reaching out to lay her hand lightly on the woman’s bare wrist. Her fingers brush the rough line of scar tissue that lies there. ‘Know that, whatever else you may think of me.’

When Yennefer turns in her chair, mouth open in a belated retort, the woman has already portaled away. 

——

IV.

‘Yennefer!’

The deafening roar of the summoned firestorm that swept around her still echoes in Tissaia’s ears as she stumbles up the slope, her voice ringing out across the empty field, calling with increasing desperation. Sodden Hill is dark and empty. Thousands of charred bodies cover the scorched earth, grey ash falls on cracked rock, and the scent of smoke overwhelms every other sense.

(Alone. She’s alone. Cut off from her magic, the others dead for all she knows, and...Yennefer...)

Tissaia finds Yennefer fifty paces away from where she had stood on the rock. She’s face-down on the grass, covered in soot and bleeding from her side. Weakened by the Dimeritium, the metallic particles suppressing her magic, Tissaia hasn’t the strength to do more than collapse next to Yennefer and cradle her fading body to her chest, curling around her. 

She’d asked for this. She’d begged her to come to Sodden Hill and stand with her, with the rest of them. And Yennefer, the proud, powerful,  _ frustrating _ girl she’d pulled out of an animal pen six decades ago, had done it for _ her. _

—

They are found by Temerian scouts in the end, a little before daybreak, as the Northern armies begin to cross the divide.

King Foltest gives them a tent to recover in, separate from the other injured, before taking the bulk of his forces further south to drive back the divided Nilfgaard armies. 

Philippa Eilhart arrives with the Redanians soon afterwards and stays for the short hour necessary to stabilize Yennefer and cleanse Tissaia’s blood of the taint of dimeritium. 

‘The others, how many survived?’ Tissaia asks quietly. 

She’s lying on her back on a cot, watching a small trail of metallic flecks drift out of her skin and siphon into a glass bottle under Philippa’s direction. Her lungs are already feeling better, and she can finally feel the threads of her magic in the distance where before there was only nothingness.

‘Triss is badly burned,’ Philippa’s voice is brisk, her hands moving through the air in weaving motions as she sifts through blood and tissue to find the last pieces of metal floating in Tissaia’s body. ‘- Keira and Rita are treating her right now - trying to minimize the scarring. Sabrina is unconscious - Fringilla brought Yrdenian mind worms into battle, if you can imagine - I expect she’ll recover eventually.’ 

Phillipa finishes her spell, caps the bottle of dimeritium particles and holds it up to the candlelight, examining it. 

‘We’ve found thirteen bodies so far, including Coral’s - and hers was the most recognizable even missing arms and legs,’ she continues, once she’s satisfied herself with the bottle. ‘No sign of Vilgefortz, so I imagine he’ll have died in a spectacularly stupid fashion that he’d think was heroic.’

She stands, eyeing Yennefer’s naked form on the opposite cot, deep in a healing sleep. 

‘I’ll leave your pretty pet for you to clean up yourself, Tissaia. Vizimir is chasing after Foltest to see who can kill more Nilfgaardians and I must be at his side. It would be a shame if I didn’t have the chance at exacting some vengeance on Fringilla for Triss’s scars.’ 

‘You should have been with us, Philippa.’

Philippa snorts, and picks up her cloak from a low bench, pausing before leaving to look back at the woman.

‘This war is not a short jog down a garden path after a loose puppy, Tissaia. It took no small measure of convincing on my part to get King Vizimir to agree to come. My heart aches for the loss of our sisters, but when the choice was either coming alone or arriving with fifteen thousand soldiers, which would you have picked, I wonder?’

The tent curtains swing close behind her, leaving Tissaia alone with her thoughts and a sleeping Yennefer.

—

Tissaia’s inner stores of magic are not yet recovered, but she manages to draw warmth into the cool basin near the bed and wash her face and hands, watching the water grow brown with dirt and blood. There are fresh linens in one of the chests left by the moving army and she dresses herself in a silk robe - too large for her small frame, but clean. 

Pouring fresh water into the basin, she carries it the short distance over to the sleeping woman and sets about the task of wiping the dried blood and dark soot from Yennefer’s skin with the steaming washcloth. 

(She’s done this before - Yennefer throws herself bodily into every physical or mental challenge and putting together the pieces afterwards seems to have become Tissaia's unasked-for specialty.) 

After a long time spent carefully clearing the congealed mess of blood and dirt and ash from warm skin, the water runs clear in the basin. She combs her fingers through the dark mess of the woman’s hair - it will need to be brushed eventually. Yennefer is drowsy and pliant in her hands and for the first time in decades Tissaia is able to examine her without interruption. She traces the cheekbones and lips and the jaw with careful fingers long after the dirt has been scrubbed away. 

One warm drop trickles down her cheek, followed by another, and soon, she is clutching Yennefer’s body, her face tucked into the long neck, crying hot tears.

‘I am sorry,’ she whispers. ‘This was my fault. I wasn’t enough. I should have done more.’

‘First a 'please' and now an apology as well,’ comes the soft murmur next to her ear. ‘You must be under an enchantment, Rectoress,’ 

Startled, Tissaia pulls away from Yennefer.

Violet eyes blink sleepily back at her.

‘You’re awake.’

'Difficult to sleep when someone is crying on you,' Yennefer hums. She turns on the cot, stretching for a moment before settling to her previous position under Tissaia’s body, separated only by a thin sheet. ‘Tired, though. Can’t imagine why.' 

The tent is lit only by a handful of candles on a small folding table at the center of the tent. The din of horses and metal and marching men faded hours ago, and the tent is quiet, the only sound the faint flutter of night winds rustling the sides of the fabric walls. In the half-light, Tissaia’s hand returns to the place it was before, and she trails the backs of her fingers against Yennefer’s cheek. 

'You were magnificent,' she whispers, gazing down at the beautiful features. She can’t obfuscate, not now when they’re both raw and vulnerable. ‘The control necessary for...what you did.’

She watches as Yennefer turns her head and blindly brushes her lips against her hand. 

'I mislead you, all those years ago,' Tissaia continues quietly, her hands pulling away and coming to rest on the Yennefer's covered abdomen. 'You are stubborn and selfish and preoccupied with power, and more precious to me than anyone else I've ever known. It was impossible not to love you.’

Yennefer stills. Her dark lashes flutter open again and she stares wide-eyed up at Tissaia.

'Do you really mean that?’ 

Tissaia nods silently, not breaking her gaze. 

Yennefer's slender torso flexes as she slowly pushes herself up off the cot to a sitting position, the thin sheet sliding down below her breasts. 

'This might be the right time to share my frustratingly persistent fantasy of kissing you.' Yennefer says softly, glancing down at Tissaia’s lips, shifting on the cot. 

'Persistent?'

'Mmm.’ Yennefer’s voice has deepened, and her expression has turned hungry. Her long arms move up to Tissaia’s waist, hands settling on her hip bones under the delicate fabric of the gown. ‘Every time we met since I left for Aedirn. And if today is the day we are being honest with each other, my fantasy involved a lot more than just kissing.'

For once in her life, Tissaia is struck speechless. Yennefer reaches up and traces her jawline with her fingertips. Her hands are trembling. 

‘Do you know, I could never stop thinking about you? I’d be doing the most mundane of things and still have a stray thought about your voice, or your face, or your disapproving expression, even though I hadn’t seen or heard from you in decades. It was infuriating.’

She smiles - a bright flash of white in the faint light - and brushes Tissaia's loose hair away from her face.

‘This is the first time I’ve ever seen you with your hair unbound.’ Yennefer's moved closer to her, one leg hanging over the side of the cot, the other behind Tissaia’s back so that smaller woman is sitting between her legs. ‘You’re always so controlled, it must be stifling.’

Yennefer’s hand has drifted down to push aside the collar of the too-large dressing gown that hangs off Tissaia’s frame. 

‘My beautiful Rectoress,' she says, leaning forward and pressing a kiss onto the woman’s pale breast, her back curving gracefully with the movement. ‘How may I serve you best?’

‘You don’t wear deference well, Yennefer.’

Tissaia has finally found her voice. 

Yennefer laughs softly and moves up to nuzzle under her chin, warm mouth pressing light kisses down Tissaia’s bare throat. Instinctively, Tissaia tilts her head up again with both hands and touches Yennefer’s forehead to her own, sending the overwhelming feelings she has for the other woman in the clearest way she knows.

Yennefer’s answering thoughts are of surprise and wonder and desire. The vulnerability is there too, and the entrenched hurt that Tissaia suspects may never quite go away. But most dominating of all is the fierce love for the woman who took her out of another life all those years ago, and never let her settle for the easy way.

‘I love you too,’ Yennefer whispers.    


(There’s so much to do. Sisters to bury, countless wounds to heal, and the peace to be brokered. But for this one moment in her life, Tissaia knows contentment.)

\----

The End. 

**Author's Note:**

> A word about Tissaia's backstory. If you watch Tissaia during the third episode as Yennefer confronts her about being sent to Nilfgaard, there's a lot more information in her facial expression than her words about what she thinks about Fergus getting his hands on Yennefer. I took it to be rare physical show of reluctance to expose Yennefer to something Tissaia had experienced herself personally during her own time as a court mage.


End file.
